Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten are locked in a stand-off over border protection ahead of parliament’s vote on the medical transfers bill.
Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten remain locked in a stand-off over border protection, with Labor yet to take up a government offer of a security briefing, and with the home affairs minister having to correct a statement about the Labor leader’s contact with officials.

Labor has also gone on the offensive over a leak of a classified briefing with input from security agencies, reportedly about the negative implications of the crossbench medical transfers bill for Operation Sovereign Borders.

The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, accused the government on Thursday of engaging in “further politicisation” of Australia’s national security agencies, and suggested Asio would be unimpressed with the unusual disclosure to the Australian newspaper.

Bowen said the government had “very serious questions to answer as to how classified advice … has made it on the front pages of one of the nation’s newspapers”.

Australian government ignored refugee transfer advice from its own doctors for up to five years

Read more

“I’ll tell you something about classified advice. It’s classified for a reason. It’s not meant to be read about in the newspaper.”

Guardian Australia has requested a copy of the leaked briefing from the prime minister’s office, but it has not been forthcoming. The government has spent Thursday pointing to the briefing to amplify its political attack, but has also declined to release the material so it can be scrutinised.

With parliament set to resume next week for a bruising session, the Coalition has been escalating its rhetoric against a crossbench medical transfers bill in an effort to avoid losing a vote on the floor. If the vote is lost, it would be the first such defeat since 1929.

Peter Dutton declared early on Thursday Shorten had been briefed by agencies about the negative impact of the medical transfers bill – a statement he later adjusted when it was clear that had not occurred.

During a radio interview Dutton said: “Bill Shorten now has advice, he’s had briefings. The agencies have told him that this bill would be a disaster, that it would restart boats.”

Australia can't be allowed to play politics with refugees' lives any more | Freya Dinshaw

Read more

At a press conference later in the day, he was more equivocal, saying it was his “understanding” that the Labor leader had been briefed, and if that hadn’t happened, it was Shorten who needed to explain why “he couldn’t be bothered to turn up to a briefing on national security”.

In a statement issued later in the afternoon, Dutton was back on the offensive, saying the fact Shorten had not yet “been personally briefed on the disastrous consequences of his support for the Phelps bill is an indictment on his leadership”.

Dutton also declared during the day that the Greens Bob Brown and Richard Di Natale could sign off on medical transfers to Australia under the crossbench proposal, an idea Di Natale quickly countered, pointing out that neither he nor Brown were currently registered.

Richard Di Natale (@RichardDiNatale)

How much can this bloke stuff up in a day?

Neither Bob nor I are currently registered so we couldn’t sign off a transfer. To think Dutton is making daily decisions about the fate of innocent people. He’ll say anything to distract from his government’s disgraceful policies. pic.twitter.com/AZgOD3m23n

While Labor has supported the crossbench medical transfers bill, Shorten has equivocated publicly during the last 48 hours about whether the opposition will continue to do so.

As the government’s political assault has intensified, Shorten has suggested Labor, while currently supportive of the crossbench bill, might back a new proposition from the government setting up an independent medical review panel to vet medical transfers of asylum seekers from offshore detention.

The evident equivocation has prompted the independents Kerryn Phelps and Tim Storer, the architects of the current legislation, to send a public message to Shorten and Labor, and fellow parliamentarians, not to “cave in” to Morrison’s “scare tactics and deliberate misinformation” about their proposal.

While some in Labor will fear a toxic battle with the Coalition about border protection, any substantial shift by the leadership will spark a backlash in the caucus.

The amended party platform, which followed an exhaustive round of internal negotiations, commits Labor to improving the medical transfer process, establishing an independent health advice panel to provide medical advice, and maintaining ministerial discretion in all decision making.